Few Minorities At Country Clubs

June 05, 1997|by FRANK WHELAN, The Morning Call

At Lehigh Valley country clubs, where golf is the pulse of life, non-discrimination polices are commonplace but minority members are not. It wasn't until 1991 that Saucon Valley Country Club admitted its first African-American member, Allentown businessman Bernard Durant.

Lehigh University President Dr. Peter Likins, a friend of Durant, Bethlehem Steel Corp. CEO Curtis "Hank" Barnette and several other local corporate leaders sponsored him for membership.

Durant knows what discrimination is all about. He remembers hearing the word "nigger" shouted at him in a north Texas gas station in the 1950s when he tried to take a drink from the water fountain reserved for whites.

He also remembers coming to Allentown in the early 1960s as a young engineer for Western Electric and encountering what he calls "more subtle" prejudice in attempting to buy a house.

When he was interviewed for membership at Saucon, Durant says, some of the more personal questions about family and finances felt like they might have something to do with his race. But Saucon Valley Country Club President George Burke Jr. says Durant went through the same rigorous interviewing process as any other prospective member. "This process is the same regardless of who you are. It is the same for everybody," says Burke.

Durant says that he has found acceptance at Saucon Valley. He says he has brought other African-Americans with him to the club and does not feel discriminated against. He mentions as a particular friend attorney Bruce Davis, former secretary to the Saucon Valley Board of Governors, with whom he shares a locker.

Nonetheless, it was only six years ago that Durant's membership changed the racial makeup of Saucon Valley forever and he feels sure that there are some people at Saucon Valley who may not be comfortable with an African-American member. "I just try to ignore them," he says.

According to Lehigh Country Club General Manager Zenard Mikulski, the club has no African-American members, but has no barriers to them. "We do not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, religion or ethnicity. If someone is proposed by a member for membership and is accepted by the club, then they would become a member," he says.

Frederick Rickey, manager of Brookside Country Club, states that no members of the club are African American. But, he says, there is no official bar against this. "In our bylaws we state that we do not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, religion or ethnicity," he says.

Asked whether other minority groups are represented in the club membership, both Mikulski and Rickey say it is not the policy of either club to classify members by their ethnic or religious background.

Berkleigh Country Club's general manager Tony Schera says the club does not and never has discriminated. "We have all types of members but to tell you the truth we really don't keep track of people by ethnic or racial category," he says.

America's country clubs have never been bastions of diversity. But they were never meant to be. Most were created between 1880 and 1930, when economic, racial, cultural and ethnic lines divided the United States in a way it is difficult to imagine today. From the downtown gentlemen's club to the labor union hall, the country was split into "us" and "them."

Golf was not always a sport of the wealthy. From the time it was first played in America in the late 1880s it was widely popular across economic, cultural and ethnic lines. But it became a particular passion with the rich. A caustic non-golfer writing for The New York Times noted this as early as 1894:

"Society is as prone to fads as are the sparks to fly upward. And the latest in outdoor fads is golf. Tennis, archery and polo have each had their turn, and golf is now coming in to replace them in the fickle minds of (high society).

"Without being as violent as tennis or polo, the ancient Scottish game furnishes more exercise than either archery or croquet and seems to find favor with those lovers of outdoor sports who are too stout, too old or too lazy to enjoy any of the severer games."

By 1900, America had more than 1,000 golf courses and most of them were crowded. The majority were public courses. But the rage for golf among the rich, whose interest in the sport really sparked its American success, led to its association with the country club. The wealthy had the resources to hire the best golf course architects and pros. All of the major tournaments were held at the country clubs. When the USGA was formed in 1894 its first president was sugar millionaire Thomas Havemeyer. Whatever status the game had in America came from its association with the wealthy.